All Kerala Fishing Boat Operators Association has appealed to the State government to roll back an order increasing the licence fee and security deposit for fishing boats.
In a memorandum sent to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, boat operators said the order did not do justice to fishermen and it did not have any rationale.
General secretary of the Association Joseph Xavier Kalapurackal said boat operators had braved the recent floods for rescue operations, and were taken aback by the order issued in September.
There had been a significant increase in the licence fee and security deposit during the six months between April and September this year, the memorandum said.
The association appealed to the government to roll back the fee hike in the wake of the rise in diesel price. The diesel price has gone up ₹22 per litre in one year. This implies an increase of ₹12 lakh to ₹15 lakh per mechanised fishing boat, the memorandum said. Under these circumstances, fishing operations have become uneconomical. The memorandum appealed to the government to provide diesel subsidy as in other States. It also demanded that charges of breach of rules imposed on fishers by government agencies during sea patrol be dropped as many of the charges were ‘fabricated’.
Boat operators also said the government should take steps to ensure that fishing boats are fitted with Automatic Identification System to identify the area of their operations. The system should be made mandatory, the memorandum added.
